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What would happen if America, nearly all of America, signed on to a national austerity movement?

What if it became fashionable, like Hollywood fashionable, to only domestic foods, to make clothing last longer, to stop buying cheap plastic crap and electronics?

I don't know about where you guys live, but around here a person of average to small size (big people don't toss out clothes that still fit) can dress comfortably, formally, and even somewhat stylishly (for Florida) for next to nothing. There is no reason to ever buy something new for a baby or even hospital equipment for old people. Between yard sales and the thrift stores, we are awash in slightly used stuff.

When I was a kid, I never saw stuff like this. The crib I slept in was probably fifty or a hundred years old and had belonged to some second cousin or neighbor (same thing). My Christmas toys were new, but they got used until they decomposed. Children inherited toys from siblings and neighbors.

We simply waste too much stuff in this country. That's not anti-American, it's the truth and it's anti-American to deny that we're not behaving like the people who built this nation and whom we claim to admire. My ancestors were not frivolous people. I grew up being told, "Make it do or do without."

I also grew up eating summer vegetables in summer and winter food in winter.